


Jenny's Ghost

by Kingmaking



Series: shake what's left of me loose [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-22
Updated: 2019-04-22
Packaged: 2020-01-23 20:32:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18557332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kingmaking/pseuds/Kingmaking
Summary: And for once, choosing between Greyjoy and Stark is easy./Theon's journey to Winterfell, his arrival, and the night before what might be the end of the world.





	Jenny's Ghost

**Author's Note:**

> I never write for big~ characters but S08E02 ended my life and I wrote this from the grave, actually.

House Stark lives once more, with a king who might not be a king anymore, a boy who might not be a boy, and the Lady Sansa, who’s been that from the very beginning.

Theon pictures Pyke, with the ever-damp stones, the drafty rooms, the bridges of tangling rope stretched over dark beaches and crashing waves. Come the next moon, if the next moon came, his sister would have the place back in order, wash Euron’s stench from it. She would live and thrive and rule, even if the dead took over the continent.

He pictures Winterfell. As it was in his youth, before it was surrounded by the dead and ransacked by the Boltons and taken by the arrogant boy he’d been, the one who’d called himself a prince. The gray towers, Old Nan with her crooked teeth, the direwolves on the day they’d been found, the short-lived, feather-light snows of summer. Would a season like that ever return?

What he doesn’t picture is Sansa as he last saw her, skin green and purple and black from Ramsay’s touch, eyes alight with fear. He cannot picture her, because that would mean _hoping_. Hoping she’d made Winterfell hers once more, hoping that Ramsay’s death brought her some measure of peace. Having to pay the iron price didn’t always have to be a bad thing.

And for once, choosing between Greyjoy and Stark is easy.

/

White Harbor is empty, and those who stayed behind give him the same warning: turn back. Theon doesn’t turn back, instead pressing on along the Kingsroad until even the southbound refugees become a rare sight. The men at his back are new men, some hardly more than boys, strangers to Deepwood Motte or Winterfell or Moat Cailin; Theon is glad of it, if only so he can hear that subtle catching of the breath, when they get in sight of Winterfell. The gray towers, a sentinel at the gates, the banners with the proud direwolf, the heavy snows of the returned winter.

He’d grown up here; he would be killed here, no doubt. But he would not stand by, as he’d done before. He’d betrayed and cheated, broken the very bones of House Stark and watched as they healed crooked, but maybe there was time yet to make a crutch of himself, face the cold dead as they crashed upon Winterfell in waves. A sea, indeed. Maybe it would feel like home, maybe it would feel like drowning.

Queen Daenerys is dressed mostly in white, almost the Stark colours; Sansa wears black, with a stare to match, until Theon moves into the light. He doesn’t presume to know her mind, but her eyes? Those were Robb’s eyes, with more honest truth in them, he reckons, than could be found in the whole of his own heart.

What is he saying? Something about his sister and her fleet, something about fighting in the name of House Stark. In the name of the living, truly, but he’d be lying if he pretended to care for the masses huddling together in Winterfell’s yard as much as he cares for the lady that shelters them. Sansa embraces him, warm and healed, and Theon is able to pretend there were no tears on her face -- only a smile --, pretend he isn’t trembling, pretend the Queen and his own men aren’t watching them with unmasked interest.

/

Sansa is different, of course, the way he must be, himself. She’s taller, for one, but that has been true of every time he was reunited with her, true now and true on the day of her wedding.

Her wedding. They do not speak of it; what need is there? What Theon needed to know, he sees in the even-tempered look on Sansa’s face, the leather of her armor, the strength of her grip on his arm. They walk around Winterfell, and her step is more confident than it ever was before, her chin is held that much higher, her command echoes throughout yard and castle, obeyed by men of the North and distant Vale both. They come to her for counsel on the approaching storm, bow and say _Lady Stark_. Most of them do not seem to mind Theon, if they even notice the shadow that won’t leave the lady’s side.

They speak of Arya, Bran, Jon. Arya is angry, Bran is different, Jon has something to prove, to himself or to his queen or to everyone in the North. Sansa doesn’t ask him about Yara, and Theon only comes to understand why after sometime walking around Winterfell, as he watches men, women and children prepare for a night of battle with the dead.

Yara is part of the future; Yara might be alive tomorrow, and they may not.

/

He can never save Robb, or apologize. He cannot even have vengeance, not truly; with Bolton and Frey and Tywin Lannister dead. Bran is different; even Arya is, although the change in her is one Theon cannot describe. Not that he can describe the changes in Sansa, or the changes in himself, or the changes in Jon. Maybe they were broken down and then fixed stone by stone, like Winterfell; maybe they have yet to stop burning. That might be helpful, with the frozen dead on the way.

No saving Robb, then, and no understanding Arya or Bran or Jon. But Sansa?

Sansa allows Theon to stay near her, which is already enough to make him feel useful, helpful, dutiful. If she asked him to swear an oath, he would; if she asked him to stand between her and the dead, he would. He would, he would, and it was easy, during the year he spent away with Yara, to pretend it was for love of the Stark family, for atonement. It’s for love of _a_ Stark, assuredly.

/

Once everything that could be prepared has been prepared, once the men and women and children have been armed and armored, sent ahead or sent below, Sansa and Theon sit together in the yard, eating hard bread and watery soup.

There would be summer once more; there would be vegetables in the gardens, there would be hunting in the forest outside Winterfell, there would be fishing in the rivers, there would be no hole in the Wall and no fear in Sansa’s heart. Theon has to hold on to at least that.

They spent the day together, the lady and her shadow, and yet only now does he ask: "We may not make it to dawn…"

Does she know? Maybe it’s written on his face; maybe she’s learned to read him, the way he once presumed to read Robb. Because, without looking up at him from her seemingly fascinating slice of bread, Sansa breathes: "Just eat your soup, Theon. Please."

"I need to know how it was. How did he…" Maybe then he could stop dreaming of it, at times wishing he’d been there, at times wishing he’d never even heard the news. He’d felt at times as though something had been taken from him, stolen -- And then he’d remember, in black waves of shame, how much House Stark had suffered from Bolton treachery, how Winterfell had suffered, how _Sansa_ …

And then he’d wish he’d been there, indeed. He’d wish he’d done it himself.

Maybe Sansa doesn’t share those nightmares; maybe she doesn’t want to share them with _him_ , for her face is perfectly composed when she answers. "Like a dog. Like a dog, screaming." Theon hears the spoon in her bowl, scraping and scraping, but her face doesn’t change, not even for him. "Now please, Theon. Eat your soup."

Theon obeys.

/

They hear the horn not fifteen minutes after that, and it’s easy to ignore how Sansa’s face goes white, how Theon loses his grip on his bowl, how the men around them rise in uproar. It’s been a very long time since he felt like a brave man, or like much of anything, but this one time, this one last time, he’s the one reaching for Sansa, not the opposite.

He can almost hear a dragon overhead, though it might be a trick of the mind. What isn’t a trick is the feeling of Sansa in his arms, strong when he’s weak -- strong, even when he’s not around. Strong, steady, silent, because they know. They know of the ashes under the new stones of Winterfell, they know of Ramsay’s cruel games; they know of the approaching dead, they know of the past and future of House Stark, they know of fear and hope and pain. They know that a night such as this one is no time for a new beginning, not just yet.

They may not live to watch the next dawn, but if they do? If they do, there are some futures Theon wouldn’t mind picturing, some hopes he wouldn’t mind keeping in his own heart.

"Protect Bran," Sansa whispers, in the hollow of his neck, as the storm gathers around them. Theon allows himself to breathe in the scent of her clothes, the auburn tresses that cascade down her back, soap and silk, woodsmoke and lemon cakes.

And he says, in a breath that is comprised of her entirely: "I promise."

**Author's Note:**

> i wanted to name this 'soup' ,,,
> 
> Thank you so much for reading!


End file.
